The area presently known as Ecuador had a long history before the arrival of Europeans. Pottery figurines and containers have been discovered that date from 3000 to 2500 BCE, ranking them among the earliest ceramics in the New World. Ecuadoran ceramic styles probably influenced cultures from Peru to Mexico. Early artistic traditions such as Valdivia, Machalilla, and Chorrera were of high quality, resulting in works of art that are on display in museums around the world.

By the 1400s Ecuador was divided into warring chiefdoms. Large populations were supported by sophisticated raised-field cultivation systems, and trade networks united the Costa (the Pacific coastal plain), the Sierra (the mountainous Andean area of central Ecuador), and the Oriente (the eastern region). Chiefs built large earthen mounds (tolas) that served as bases for their homes. However, Ecuador lacked cities and states until after the Inca conquest.

The conquest was begun by Topa Inca Yupanqui (ruled 1471–93) and extended by his successor, Huayna Capac (ruled 1493–1525), who lived much of his later life in Tomebamba. Although their cultural impact was otherwise spotty, the Inca spread the use of Quichua as a lingua franca and ordered large forced migrations where resistance to their conquest was especially strong. In Ecuador it is evident that Inca rule was resented by some and supported strongly by others. Huayna Capac left the Inca empire divided between his legitimate heir, Huascar, in Cuzco, and his son by an Ecuadoran Cara princess, Atahuallpa. This led to a territorial dispute, and Atahuallpa won the ensuing civil war after a major battle near Riobamba in 1532; at just about the same time, a Spanish expedition led by Francisco Pizarro appeared off the coast. Atahuallpa was executed the next year as the Spanish conquest spread. In many parts of what is now Ecuador, Inca rule was less than 50 years old, and many of the pre-Inca chiefdoms still held the peoples’ allegiance. As a result, the Spanish under Pizarro’s lieutenant Sebastian de Belalcázar Benalcázar were welcomed as liberators by some when they invaded Ecuador from Peru in 1534, while stiff resistance was encountered from others, especially the local leader, Rumiñahui, who was captured by the Spanish and executed in Quito.

The colonial period

During much of the colonial period, what is now Ecuador was under the direct jurisdiction of the law court (audiencia) of Quito and ultimately under the rule of the Spanish crown. Spanish culture was spread primarily by religious orders and male Spanish colonists.

In the Sierra, the Spaniards established a colony of large estates worked by Indian peons. Settlements included semiautonomous Indian villages and Spanish and mestizo administrative and religious centres such as Quito, Ambato, and Cuenca. The making of rough textiles in primitive sweatshops was the only industry. The development of Roman Catholic religious establishments provided for the flowering of Baroque architecture, sculpture in wood and stone, painting, music, and other arts and crafts.

In the tropical Costa, much of the population died as a result of introduced diseases, and the area remained unhealthy until the advent of modern medicine. As a result, the coast was somewhat neglected during the colonial period, although there was some shipbuilding and exporting of cacao (as cocoa beans) from the port of Guayaquil. The small coastal population of slaves, free blacks, and mixed ethnicities, with plenty of vacant land and less coercion of labour, developed a culture very different from that of the Sierra.

In the Oriente, the region on the eastern slopes between the Andes and the headwaters of the Amazon, large populations of Shuar and other indigenous people successfully repelled European invaders; however, Jesuits and other missionaries were able to spread both Christianity and the Quichua language. The Spaniards used Quichua as a language of evangelization—at one period missionaries were required to know the language—and continued to spread it orally by means of Quichua speakers who travelled with them in further conquests.

The country’s fourth major subdivision, the Galapagos Islands, were little more than pirate nests during the colonial period. They were to achieve world fame in the 19th century, because it was there that Charles Darwin made a major portion of the observations that led to his theories on evolution and his On the Origin of Species.

The people of Quito, the Ecuadoran capital, claim that it was the scene of the first Ecuadoran patriot uprising against Spanish rule (1809). Invading from Colombia in 1822, the armies of Simón Bolívar and Antonio José de Sucre came to the aid of Ecuadoran rebels, and on May 24 Sucre won the decisive Battle of Pichincha on a mountain slope near Quito, thus assuring Ecuadoran independence.

Early national history, 1830–c. 1925

Ecuador’s early history as a country was a tormented one. For some eight years it formed, together with what are now the countries of Panama, Colombia, and Venezuela, the confederation of Gran Colombia. But on May 13, 1830, after a period of protracted regional rivalries, Ecuador seceded and became a separate independent republic.

Liberal-Conservative hostilities

An increasing rivalry and ideological differences between the Sierra and the Costa usually focused on the two leading cities—Quito, the capital, in the Sierra, and Guayaquil, the country’s principal port, in the Costa. Quito was the home of a landed aristocracy whose positions of power during this early period were based on large semifeudal estates worked by Indian labour; it was (and to some extent has remained) a conservative clerical city, resistant to changes in the status quo. Guayaquil, on the other hand, by the 19th century had become a bustling cosmopolitan port, controlled by a few wealthy merchants. These men and those around them were influenced by 19th-century liberalism; interested in trade, they favoured free enterprise and expanding markets, and some were anticlerical. Their bourgeois attitudes conflicted sharply with the more aristocratic beliefs of the Sierra elites. These early rivalries tended to be exacerbated by the nature of the two cities. The people of Guayaquil, the country’s breadwinner and the home of Ecuador’s industry and trade, felt that a disproportionate part of the state’s tax income was spent in Quito by government bureaucrats. Those in Quito complained that their exports had to pass through the monopolistic bottleneck of Guayaquil, which acted as a traditional middleman and, by adding to the price of Sierra products, reduced their competitiveness in the world market.

Rivalry between Flores and Rocafuerte (1830–45)

Ambitious generals and politicians have played on this Quito-Guayaquil rivalry since the foundation of the republic in 1830. During the period 1830–45 two leaders from the wars of independence—Juan José Flores and Vicente Rocafuerte—struggled for power; Flores found much of his support in Quito, Rocafuerte in Guayaquil. Hostility was not constant, and for a few years the rivals agreed to alternate in the presidency. They were not simply personalist dictators; Rocafuerte in particular had a coherent ideology of government and did much to improve the educational institutions of the main cities. Both, however, were capable of deplorable conduct in their efforts to retain or regain power. Flores, on one occasion, even invited the Spaniards to return.

Breakdown of national government (1845–60)

The rivalry between Flores and Rocafuerte was a struggle between two strong leaders. Between 1845 and 1860, however, the country went through a period of chaos in which a series of squabbling, weak leaders (usually self-proclaimed liberals) fought for the presidency. This period reinforced the already close ties between the military and the national government.

The regime of García Moreno (1860–75)

In the next period (1860–75) one of Latin America’s most extraordinary experiments in autocracy occurred, during the presidency of Gabriel García Moreno. As a young man, García Moreno had witnessed the chaos in Ecuador and the selfish struggles of the various cliques. He had also seen the European Revolutions of 1848 and had developed an abhorrence of liberalism and of uncontrolled violence. A careful analysis of Ecuadoran society led him to conclude that the young country lacked unifying factors: it had no great tradition, suffered from regional resentments, and was sharply divided by class and between Europeans and Indians who did not even share a common language. García Moreno concluded that the only social cement was religion—the general adherence of the population to Roman Catholicism. He felt that in time nationalism could be created and more social cohesion would emerge as a result but that meanwhile Ecuador needed a period of peace and strong government. When he became president, therefore, he based his regime on two factors—strong authoritarian personal rule and the Roman Catholic Church. He established the Conservative Party (Partido Conservador; PC), which promoted a powerful central government and a strong connection between church and state. All education and welfare, along with the direction of much government policy, were turned over to clerics. Other religions were harshly discouraged. All opposition was ruthlessly suppressed, and some leading liberals spent many years in exile.

Although many aspects of García Moreno’s regime were reactive, it did mark the first period of genuine progress for Ecuador. Roads, schools, and hospitals were built. A start was made on a Quito-Guayaquil railroad, to tie together the Sierra and the Costa. García Moreno encouraged the planting of eucalyptus trees from Australia to combat erosion in the Sierra, where the original ground cover had been cut down for fuel by the impoverished Indians. Other agricultural reforms slowly raised production. By the end of his regime a strong feeling of nationalism had been created among the urban classes.

In the 19th century, however, this authoritarian, clerical government seemed an anachronism, and liberal opposition grew both at home and abroad. When García Moreno was assassinated on the steps of the government palace in 1875, the liberal intellectual and pamphleteer Juan Montalvo proclaimed from exile, “My pen has killed him.”

Shift to liberalism (1875–97)

García Moreno’s death, as he himself might have forecast, brought a period of near anarchy. Conservatives and liberals struggled for power. But Ecuador had become part of the world market; the importance of the coast slowly increased, and the liberals of that area increasingly dominated the economy.

A new liberal hero emerged from the lower classes as the leader of the coastal reaction to Sierra conservatism and clericalism. A man of great personal magnetism, Gen. Eloy Alfaro led a march against the Sierra in 1895 and after a year became constitutional president, serving two terms (1897–1901 and 1906–11). Much of the administrative structure of the García Moreno era was dismantled. The anticlerical liberals, proclaiming themselves the Radical Liberal Party (Partido Liberal Radical; PLR), gradually removed the church from state education: they instituted civil marriage and burial, proclaimed freedom of religion, permitted divorce, and eased controls on the press. The church’s tithe was abolished, and many of its large estates were confiscated by the state, some estates passing into the hands of liberal leaders.

In many ways, however, in spite of political manifestos to the contrary, the liberals of this era shared the basic ideas of the previous period. They advanced García Moreno’s road- and railroad-building programs; the Quito-Guayaquil railroad was completed in 1908, during Alfaro’s second term. Moreover, central government did not lose its authoritarian caste; Alfaro, the liberal caudillo (dictator), was as arbitrary and ruthless as his conservative predecessor. In the Sierra and on the coast, power remained unchanged. The problem of the great haciendas was not touched, and the change to liberalism meant little to the impoverished Indians and peasants.

Alfaro’s overthrow, like that of García Moreno, was brought about by his stubborn attempts to perpetuate himself in office. A coalition of conservatives and dissident liberals forced him and his clique from the presidency in August 1911, but, when the next president died in office shortly thereafter, the aging and increasingly unpopular Alfaro returned from exile and tried to recapture his following. The leaders of the liberals rejected him, and, after some fighting, he was arrested in Guayaquil. He and his lieutenants were sent to a model prison in Quito, built years before by García Moreno. There, on Jan. 28, 1912, a lynch mob broke in, dragged the prisoners through the streets, and burned their bodies.

Problems of the early 20th century

The liberals remained in office, but the real power continued to rest in the hands of the wealthy merchants and bankers of Guayaquil. During World War I and the short boom that followed it, this clique further extended its influence and diversified its capital with a view to controlling the agriculture of the coastal plain. Cacao was the dominant export crop, as in the colonial period, but sugar and rice became increasingly important.

A depression followed in the early 1920s. The price of food increased, and exports in general declined. The sucre—the national unit of currency—fell rapidly in value. At the same time, the country’s cacao plantations became infected with a fungus that causes a malformation known as witches’-broom, and production sagged. These crises brought urban discontent, the formation of trade unions in Guayaquil, riots, and massacres by the army. Hundreds died during riots and shootings in November 1922.

In 1925 the army entered this turbulent situation, claiming that it wished to restore national unity and blaming many of the country’s problems on the merchant bankers of Guayaquil. Unfortunately, the 1925 revolution brought little change to Ecuador’s social and economic structures.

Modern history

The period between 1925 and 1948 was one of greater turbulence than Ecuador had ever known. Increasing involvement in the world market and in international politics meant that the country could no longer escape entanglements and the consequences of world ideological conflicts. Yet during this crucial period, Ecuador’s internal disunity prevented the modernization of its social structure, land tenure system, education, and communications. Thus, the country was badly equipped to face the demands of the age.

Economic development and loss of territory in the 1940s

Ecuador was still suffering from the effects of the Great Depression when it became involved in World War II. It sided with the Allies and allowed the United States to build military bases on its territory, but it played little direct part in the war. Under Pres. Carlos Arroyo del Río, Ecuador drew some benefit from the higher prices for raw materials caused by the war, and the early years of the war were relatively prosperous and tranquil.

World War II had a serious secondary effect on the country, however. The large Amazonian territories claimed by Ecuador had never been effectively controlled by the government; much of the area was occupied by indigenous groups. Dating back to the 16th century, Peruvians had increasingly settled along the Amazon and its tributaries. In July 1941, after long diplomatic bickering and a series of border incidents, the Peruvian army invaded, seized much of the disputed Amazonian area, and devastated El Oro provincia (province). The Ecuadoran forces, poorly trained and equipped, were easily defeated, and the disgrace caused the overthrow of Arroyo del Río. The United States and the other major powers were too preoccupied with World War II to allow such small conflicts to destroy Allied unity or to disrupt the production of vital raw materials. A peace conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1942 forced Ecuador to relinquish its claims to much of the Amazonian region. Subsequently, Ecuador repeatedly attempted to reopen the question, claiming that the Protocol of Rio did not establish precise borders and that the new borders were therefore invalid. This constant irredentism was used repeatedly by demagogues and ultranationalists, who distracted attention and effort from urgent internal problems.

Domination of Velasco Ibarra after World War II

Politics and government after World War II presented contradictions. Ecuador enjoyed a long period of constitutional government and relatively free elections following the presidency of the PLR leader Galo Plaza (1948–52). There were also two long interludes of military government (1963–66; 1972–79), but the period was dominated by one of Latin America’s great caudillos, José María Velasco Ibarra. Velasco Ibarra, who died in 1979, was president of Ecuador five times but completed only one of these terms. He seemed able to win any election, such was his popularity with the masses, but his terms of office were marked by sudden reversals in policy, contradictory economic programs, personal outbursts, temporary suspensions of civil liberties, and military interventions. Some critics claimed that Velasco Ibarra drew support from communist groups; others said he was the puppet of powerful business groups in Guayaquil. But neither these nor other groups were able to control the erratic Velasco Ibarra for long.

His political presence may have inhibited the development of coherent political parties and programs for changing the country’s antiquated social and economic structure, but his personal appeal cut across parties and ideologies. The traditional parties—the PLR and the PC—were thrown into disarray by his incursions, and the growth of newer parties, such as the Ecuadoran Socialists and the Social Christians, was retarded. Opponents alleged that Velasco Ibarra made economic progress impossible because constructive measures undertaken by previous governments were halted or reversed by the Velasco Ibarra interludes.

Ecuador from the late 20th century

After Velasco Ibarra’s last fall from power, in 1972, military officers ruled for some seven years before handing over the government to a constitutionally elected (July 16, 1979) civilian president. The civilian and military governments of the 1970s had not developed a firm policy for dealing with the oil boom that occurred in that decade. The boom increased the size and wealth of the middle class, led to the building of roads, quays, pipelines, and other infrastructure, and caused severe inflation. No basic structural reforms took place, however, and the poor suffered the effects of inflation but reaped few of the benefits of the oil boom.

Velasco Ibarra’s death and the withdrawal of the military officers from government allowed the country to return to an elected civilian government and a new constitution in 1979. Jaime Roldós Aguilera, a young social democrat, was elected president on a reformist platform. He promised greater social equality and a more equitable distribution of oil industry profits, but he was unable to manage the legislature and was soon at odds with his own party, the Concentration of Popular Forces. His popularity increased after a border skirmish with Peru in early 1981, but he was killed in an airplane crash later that year. His successor was Osvaldo Hurtado Larrea of the small Christian Democratic party. The economy, depressed by the drop in world oil prices, spiraled downward with accompanying high inflation and a depreciating currency.

León Febres Cordero, a congressman from Guayaquil, was elected president in 1984. His free-market economics and pro-U.S. foreign policy drew Ecuador into closer alliance with the U.S. administration of Pres. Ronald Reagan, but Febres Cordero was never popular in Ecuador. Oil prices continued to fall, and his troubles with the National Congress and the military led to calls for his resignation and, on one occasion, to his being kidnapped by air force personnel for half a day, until he agreed to release one of their leaders. In March 1987 he suspended interest payments on Ecuador’s $8.3 billion foreign debt after an earthquake destroyed part of a major oil pipeline.

Left-wing opponent Rodrigo Borja Cevallos was elected to the presidency in 1988, but he seemed to have few solutions to the steadily worsening economic crisis. His term was marked by a major national uprising in 1990, with Indian groups demonstrating in favour of such issues as land reform; the uprising and subsequent protests pushed the Ecuadoran government to recognize the land rights of these indigenous groups and address their other concerns.

In 1992 Sixto Durán Ballén was elected president. He brought the government budget into balance, reduced trade barriers, brought Ecuador into the World Trade Organization, and encouraged foreign investment. The benefits of his accomplishments, however, were somewhat offset by conflict: in early 1995, the long-simmering boundary dispute with Peru erupted in a border war, leading to a standoff that persisted until a peace accord was signed on Oct. 26, 1998. The country was left with a crippling war debt.

From the mid-1990s to the early 21st century, Ecuador experienced several years of political upheaval, during which time many individuals served as president. Populist leader Abdalá Bucaram Ortíz was elected president in 1996; however, he became increasingly unpopular because of his erratic and controversial behaviour, and in early 1997 Congress removed him from office and replaced him with Fabián Alarcón Rivera. In elections held in 1998, Quito mayor Jamil Mahuad Witt was elected president. Early in his term, Mahuad was confronted with a serious economic crisis that peaked in 1999. His unpopular austerity measures, implemented to address the crisis, and high rates of inflation resulted in public demonstrations against his leadership. In 2000 Mahuad made perhaps his most unpopular decision—to adopt the U.S. dollar as Ecuador’s currency. This proposal proved to be his undoing, and shortly thereafter he was removed from the presidency in a coup engineered by indigenous leaders and some members of the military, including Col. Lucio Gutiérrez Borbua. The coup leaders eventually agreed to let Vice Pres. Gustavo Noboa Bejerano ascend to the presidency, which effectively ended the coup. Noboa followed through with Mahuad’s decision to convert Ecuador’s currency to the dollar, despite the plan’s unpopularity. However, this conversion, as well as a rise in oil prices, helped stabilize the economy in 2001.

The beginning of the 21st century found Ecuador struggling with many of the same issues as in previous decades: political upheaval, social unrest due to dissatisfaction with indigenous rights and economic policies, and poor economic performance. Former coup leader Gutiérrez stood in the 2002 presidential elections and won, taking office in 2003. He made some attempts at economic reform, but he did not have the cooperation of the National Congress and was initially limited in his success. Gutiérrez was removed from office in April 2005 and replaced with Vice Pres. Alfredo Palacio.

Rafael Correa Delgado was elected president in November 2006 as an independent leftist, with oil policy, poverty, debt, and relations with the United States as the main campaign issues. Correa, an ally of populist Venezuelan Pres. Hugo Chávez and other left-leaning leaders, strengthened state control over the country’s extensive oil resources, increased spending on social programs, and diminished ties to U.S. development organizations. In early 2008 he broke off diplomatic relations with Colombia after that country’s forces raided a guerrilla camp inside Ecuador. Correa also received support from the majority of voters for his plan to devise a new constitution to fight long-standing corruption in Ecuador’s National Congress.

A draft constitution was approved by the National Assembly in July 2008, and more than 60 percent of Ecuadoran voters backed the new constitution in a referendum held in September. The new constitution was the 20th since the country gained independence in 1830, and it reflected many of Correa’s leftist ideals, including a ban on foreign military bases, the allowance of same-sex marriage, free education through the college level, social security benefits for unpaid domestic workers, and greater national control over the oil and mining industries. Moreover, it gave broad powers to the president—most notably, allowing the president to serve up to two consecutive four-year terms. Critics of the new constitution accused Correa of giving the government too much control and aligning himself too much with Chávez. Correa won a second four-year term, receiving more than 50 percent of the vote in the April 2009 presidential elections.